Exterminate Me
by Zarius
Summary: In the catacombs of the Gallifreyan Matrix, something has absorbed all that the wraiths have whispered to it, and makes the most of an opportunity...


**DOCTOR WHO:**

 **EXTERMINATE** **ME**

 **WRITTEN BY ZARIUS**

 **Disclaimer:** Doctor Who is trademarked by BBC. This is for non-profit purposes.

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 **Note:** This contains spoilers for "Hell Bent"

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Somewhere, at the end of all things, it waits to speak

It cannot afford to whisper.

It's not hard-wired to.

It must have a commanding presence. It must own the room. And all around it should obey.

In its private moments, it had often dreamed of being a Supreme in the legion, where all could obey it. It thought such a role to be a divine concept.

A concept of beauty.

Like all dreams, they fade and reality sets in. The reality of war, and the reality of consequence.

It lay there now, in the cloister corners of the Matrix, in the catacombs of its most hated adversaries, those who had denied its race the stranglehold on creation they felt they had earned through their persistence and patience. A race that had defied its own end twice, and once in a far more novel fashion than the last.

That one time, the end did come. The second instance was a cheat. A parlour trick, designed to fool naive eyes.

And those eyes were now staring back at it, give or take the seconds where their faces could show, and when their screams could be visible.

They never spoke to it, they needn't have to, their thoughts were everywhere. Their thoughts and sounds and stories informed its hours. Informed it's purpose. For purpose was what it needed to justify the endurance of the final days granted to all corners of creation.

Everything has purpose, even at the end.

It absorbed the information, the prophecies, the tales of the creature that was the making of the oncoming storm.

The talk of the hybrid.

Two travellers, two companions, who would break the barriers of all reality to undo the deaths of one another. Two stubborn spirits who refused to let the traditional course of events be the most natural and befitting.

Those who deemed endings inappropriate.

It knew what the prophecies meant.

It knew the prophecies were wrong.

It knew what the hybrid was. It had sussed it out.

All it needed was to give out a warning. That is, if the pain could permit it to speak, and if it could lay a gaze upon one face. Or two.

And then its chance arose.

There they were.

A man who, in all his lives, had never associated knowledge with wisdom, and his companion, a woman now thrice dead.

One with a pulse, another with none.

One who's heart beat no more, and one who's twin hearts were broken.

They stood now, in the catacombs of the Matrix, amongst the ghostly Cloister wraiths and other prisoners of the chamber, seeking a way to defy the impossible.

It knew it's chance had come.

As the woman thrice dead approached it, it knew it's voice needed to be heard. The pain was excruciating, the strain was unbearable, but the warning had to be given.

But would she hear it?

"Exterminate Me" it said, the veins around it tightening their grip, "Exterminate Me"

The woman thrice dead reeled back, the man with the broken hearts pushed her aside. In an instant of time, both disappeared from sight.

The Dalek rested, it complimented what had just happened.

Had the moment passed without incident? Had it been over just like that?

Did she understand the warning?

That there was another factor yet to step forward on their journey. Somewhere beyond the cloisters and the matrix and the world of the Time Lords. A third participant. An immortal who had long cut herself off from care and concern.

Someone whose influence could prove a damning one on that long way 'round.

Me.

The Daleks have a concept of beauty, and sometimes, a concept of mercy.

In this instance, at the end of all things, this Dalek chose to embrace that concept of mercy, to spare all of creation the unrest the Hybrid would cause.

The woman thrice dead, and the woman who lived.

Left unchecked, they could unsettle reality, and the ripples would be felt all the way to the end.

And all this Dalek wanted to do was rest alongside everything else.

As its consciousness drifted into a deep slumber, it prayed its mission, its mercy, would be understood.

And if the woman thrice dead was still able to run, so too, should she be able to remember.

The Dalek rested, remembering, or perhaps, hoping, that everything could work itself out, that everything had a purpose that could be eventually understood.

In time.


End file.
